New teammates Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz had their first outing as co-leaders at the Volta a Catalunya, coming together to land a podium finish.
Cor Vos
The Volta a Catalunya ended as expected, with Jonas Vingegaard standing at the top of the podium in his last preparation race before taking on the Giro d’Italia. In second was the in-form Lenny Martinez, while third went to Florian Lipowitz.
The 25-year-old German’s strong finish was built on the back of a brilliant team performance, especially on the last two stages, and not least with co-leader-turned-domestique Remco Evenepoel who was instrumental in lifting his teammate onto the podium, turning around his own misfortune that began a couple of days before.
It’s a terrific result for the young German, for whom this is the first podium finish since the 2025 Tour de France, but it’s also a big test passed by the newly-minted partnership that’s destined for this year’s French Grand Tour.
[race_result id=14 stage_id=89955 count=5 gc=5 year=2026]
Evenepoel did a lot of work for Lipowitz on Saturday’s stage 6.
Lipowitz was already in a strong position after a late stage 5 attack propelled him up to fourth overall, but two dangerous riders stood in the way of the podium, and neither Lenny Martinez nor Felix Gall looked likely to falter on the climbs. The situation demanded some boldness, and that’s where Evenepoel and co. came in.
The team pulled the trigger on its plan about 30 km from the finish of stage 6 as the peloton hit the Cat.1 Collada de Sant Isidre (5 km at 7.9%), the remains of a 15-man breakaway still about a minute up the road. As Giulio Ciccone dropped his last remaining companions to hunt down KOM points, Mattia Cattaneo – who was dropped from the break on the previous climb – was caught by the peloton on the lower slopes and he immediately went to work.
As Cattaneo settled in, Hindley brought Evenepoel and Lipowitz up the side and onto the Italian’s wheel.
With the Giro-bound Jai Hindley, Evenepoel and Lipowitz lined up behind him, Cattaneo put in a big shift for about 2 km, stringing out the peloton to prepare the ground for an attack from Lipowitz.
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